(Excerpts of this article
have been translated into Azeri Latin in this issue).

Born
on November 14, 1917, Karim Karimov grew up in Baku and has been
involved in Soviet aeronautics from its inception after World
War II. During his career, he rose to the highest position as
Chairman of the State Commission, and supervised every stage
of development and operation of both manned space complexes as
well as unmanned interplanetary stations for the entire former
Soviet Union.

Until 1987, even Azerbaijanis did not know that the man holding
the Number One position in aerospace was an Azerbaijani. At televised
space launchings, cameras always focused on the cosmonauts and
not the person to whom they reported their readiness to carry
out the mission. As Karimov was a "secreted general",
he was always hidden from the camera's view; only his voice was
broadcast.

General Karimov, now retired and serving as a consultant to the
Mir shuttle, has recently published his first book, "The
Way to Space: The Notes of the Chairman of the State Commission,"
(in Russian) in which he describes the entire birth and development
of the aerospace industry of the former Soviet Union. The English
version is scheduled to follow next year.
Here, published in English for the first time, are some of the
memorable events which shaped General Karimov's career which
he shared with Azerbaijan International's Executive Editor, Betty
Blair, this past June in Baku.

How did the Soviet Union
get involved with aerospace? What were the early beginnings?

The birth of rockets dates back
to the end of World War II around 1945. Prior to that time, research
of outer space had been forbidden as it was considered a waste
of time. In fact, Stalin had had chief scientists, Nikolai Tupolev
and Sergei Korolyov, arrested in 1938 and imprisoned for six
years.

But then Stalin changed his mind when he heard that the Germans
had produced rockets (surface-to-surface missiles) that were
used in bombing London. Churchill, himself, informed Stalin.
That's when he began to realize the potential for such technology
and released his scientists to rush to Germany to study these
rockets. Germany had attacked England from a distance of 300
kilometers-an unprecedented feat in the history of military warfare
up to that time.

Left: End of a Good Mission. The "anonymous"
(secreted) Chairman of the (Aeronautics) Commission, Karimov
(right) was involved with all ceremonies when the cosmonauts
were launched into space. TV cameras never showed Karimov. Photo
was especially prepared for him. Mid 80s. Courtesy: Karim Karimov.

Americans were also interested
in studying German rocket phenomena. In fact, they beat us there.
Intelligence teams from the U.S. followed their front-line troops,
moving across Germany. This enabled them to amass considerable
data, design drawings, as well as actual missiles. But more importantly,
the Americans gained access to some of the best minds of the
technical staff of Peenemünde where the launchings had taken
place. They took these scientists, including Wernher von Braun,
back to America to assist in rocketry development.

Korolyov, after being released from prison, was the first Soviet
scientist to be sent to Germany. I was part of the team that
joined him a few months later to study FAU II rockets. We returned
with various supply parts from which we managed to reconstruct
ten rockets and launch seven.

It must have been exciting
to have been involved with this emerging science from the very
beginning.

We didn't really understand
the essence of what we were doing. We had no idea what would
evolve. Our task was simply to create rockets. The further they
could reach, the better. Our first efforts in 1950 were directly
patterned after the German R-2 Rockets, the only exception was
that ours had twice the range. Ours could travel 600 kilometers.
Two years later, we produced rockets with the capability of 1500
kilometers. That's when it became clear that an inter-continental
range of 10,000 kilometers was only a matter of time.

Did you ever believe there
would come a day when the Soviet Union and the United States
would be cooperating together on space projects?

Back in the 1950s and 60s, there
was such intense competition between us. Space flights are not
play toys; every single aspect of their journeys is highly calculated.
Consequently, the space race became symbolic of the intellect
of each nation; advanced technology signaled national superiority
-at least, that's how it was perceived by both sides.

Americans didn't believe us
when we first launched Sputnik (October 4, 1957), which was the
first inter-continental satellite to circle the Earth. It made
a complete cycle every 96 minutes. But the world soon realized
our success wasn't just propaganda. The first day, nobody paid
attention. But the next day, all the newspapers wrote about it.

After the Americans began taking interest in this accomplishment,
then our own media started paying attention. Coverage, prior
to that time, had been minimal-more like an obituary. Nobody
valued our achievement or recognized its significance. Nobody
understood what we had succeeded in doing. It was really Sputnik
that would usher in the Space Age. A year later, in October 1958,
the U.S. was to announce the creation of NASA (National Aeronautics
and Space Administration).

You were involved with the
first manned spacecrafts, weren't you?

Actually, the idea of sending
a human being into space originated with Korolyov. At first it
seemed like a fantasy, so unbelievable. His ideas were based
on experiments which had been conducted with dogs in space. Eventually,
Korolyov gained the support of the government and we began building
"Vostok" with the idea of sending a man into space
and returning him back safely to earth.

I'll never forget the morning when we launched our first manned
spacecraft-April 12, 1961. It was a beautiful day at Baykonur
Launching Center in Lenninsk near the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan.
Cosmonauts, Yuri Gagarin, and his backup, Gherman Titov, had
slept very comfortably the night before-in fact, much better
than we had. We knew because, unknown to them, we had monitored
their sleep via sensors under their beds. Liftoff was at 9:07
a.m. and less than two hours later at 10:55 a.m., the spacecraft
had already circled the earth and landed. It was an incredible
moment in history.

What about the technology
of joining spacecraft in orbit-how did the idea develop?

The basis for the recent joining
of the Soviet (now Russian) spacecraft, "Mir", and
the American spacecraft, "Atlantis", dates back to
October 30, 1967, when we succeeded in docking two satellites,
Kosmos 186 and Kosmos 188, together in space. This achievement
signified that we could begin building orbital stations that
could make profound research about the Earth, space and other
planets of the solar system.

Once again, Korolyov was deeply
involved in the process. He proposed that a separate chamber
be built in spacecraft. Previous ships didn't have such compartments.
This chamber would enable the ships to be autonomous for a greater
length of time. And if an emergency arose, it could serve as
a locked chamber. Unfortunately, Korolyov died in January 1966,
three years before we succeeded in docking manned spacecraft.

His death was a terrible loss. It made me feel incredibly lonely.
I had relied on him immensely as he was the Number One man in
the industry up until that time. On every space mission, there
is always incredible anxiety and pressure that something could
go wrong and the mission end in failure and tragedy. With his
passing, the entire responsibility fell upon me.

What stands out in your mind
as significant determining points in your career in aerospace?

One of the first events occurred
in 1960. My younger brother was flying back to Moscow from Vienna,
on his first trip abroad. His plane crashed while landing at
the Sheremetyevo Airport. Everyone on board was killed. It was
such a tragic shock and so I asked my chief for a few days off
to go to my brother's funeral. You have to remember we used to
work seven days a week.

That's why on that fateful day, October 24, I wasn't at the Polygon
to meet the high ranking State Commissioner, Field Marshal, Mitrofan
Nedelin. It turns out that as they were conducting some final
tests prior to launching, Nedelin refused to go down to the bunker
and stood by to watch the procedure continue. But something malfunctioned,
causing the rocket ignite and explode. Everyone standing around
was instantly killed. Under normal circumstances, I would have
been standing right beside Marshal Nedelin. It was such a mysterious
twist of fate-that my brother's death, in essence, saved mine.

As far as space missions are concerned, the first tragedy occurred
in 1966, when we sent up Vladimir Komarov in Soyuz I. Everything
appeared normal at first, but it wasn't long before we started
running into serious difficulty. By the time he started his descent,
we were in trouble. The main parachute which was supposed to
open at seven kilometers before landing got tangled and wouldn't
open. There was nothing to break the ship's high velocity as
it slammed into earth. Of course, many people believed that if
Korolyov had still been alive, the accident would never have
occurred.

There was talk about holding us personally accountable for his
death. The chief constructor of the parachute, indeed, did lose
his job, but since Brezhnev understood the nature of these projects,
he didn't fire either me or Minister Afanasyev.

But it was overwhelmingly difficult to attend Komarov's funeral
in Red Square. He had been one of our most experienced cosmonauts.
Emotionally, I was under extreme pressure because this was the
first time one of our cosmonauts had died. And yes, the West
did know all about it; they even made a film about our loss.

But there's still another tragedy that I can never forget that
deeply influenced our work. The year was 1971. The orbital station
(Soyuz 10 and Soyuz 11) had docked and the crew, Dobrovolsky,
Volkov, and Patseyev, had managed to conduct research for 24
days. When the spaceships disconnected from each other, all seemed
normal. We didn't worry much when we lost connection with the
crew as these thing sometimes happen and the craft was coming
down without difficulty. The flight landed as expected. However,
when we opened the hatch, we were shocked to find all three cosmonauts
dead.

We later learned that the flight had proceeded normally until
it reached a certain point in the descent. That's when the respiratory
valve seems to have opened too early causing the life-sustaining
air inside the ship to escape and creating sharp differences
between the pressure in the atmosphere and the blood pressure
of the cosmonauts. Because the men were operating in cramped
quarters, they had not been wearing space suits and had no protection
when the air leaked out. They had died within minutes before
being able to correct the situation.

Tell me about the beginnings
of work for docking in space?

In 1967, I conducted the experiment
to join the two "Soyuz" spaceships. (Kosmos 186 and
Kosmos 188) in orbit. The union involved electrical, hydraulic
and pneumatic systems. We had been able to bring ships very close
to each other before, but we had never actually joined them.
Our success proved that an orbital station was possible.

When I reported our success to Brezhnev, he thanked us and an
hour later, the Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers called
me to say I had just been awarded the title of Lieutenant General.
I had received the rank of General the first time when we launched
Yuri Gagarin into space.

How many cosmonauts have
you launched?

I haven't counted. But I was in that position 25 years and I
launched all of them during that period. I almost didn't have
a personal life. I used to work Saturdays and Sundays. I couldn't
fall ill. I didn't have the right to get sick.

Despite all this, I'd have to admit I'm satisfied with my life
except for the fact that I lost my wife very early on. She was
only 50 when she died and, afterwards, I never remarried. I had
met her at school; we had studied together.

Why was it that you were
never shown on TV when these launching ceremonies took place?

First of all, I was a "secret"
general. Previously, I had been in the sphere of strategic rockets
(hydrogen bombs). Later, after being transferred to aeronautics
(we had given that division the non-descript name of "Ministry
of General Machinery"), they continued the tradition of
keeping me secreted.

My name was first mentioned publicly in the newspaper, "Pravda",
on August 7, 1987. After that, everybody started interviewing
me. That was during Gorbachev's "Glasnost" and "Perestroika".
Prior to that, I was known as the "nameless" or "anonymous"
Chairman of the Commission.

Did Westerners know who you
were?

I'm not sure that they did prior
to 1987. But now they do, of course. Maybe they knew me but never
said anything possibly because they knew they weren't supposed
to know. A number of American journalists came to see me, and
interviewed me but I'm not aware that they ever wrote anything.

Tell me about your new book.

It's called "The Way to
Space: The Notes of the Chairman of the State Commission."
Frankly speaking, much of the information that was made public
was produced as propaganda. But after 1988, it became possible
to write about me as I had been in the position to have participated
in all the space flights. It was then that I was asked to write
about what actually happened behind the scenes-many events had
not been made known. People were curious about space missions
so I offered to write about my activities and to document everything
that I had experienced.

The book is very technical. In fact, it's my first published
work. I wanted to write about each space flight with all its
shortcomings as well as its benefits. Not a single flight went
smoothly. The descriptions in the book are based on reports that
I made to the State Commission. If anyone wants to discover any
information about the dates, time of flights, their landings,
it's all there. I tried not to hide anything. There had been
rumors that Gagarin was not the first cosmonaut to go into space,
but that wasn't true. I write about these kinds of things.

Now that you've retired,
how do you spend your time?

I continued to hold the chairmanship
of the Commission up until 1990 when I retired. These days I
live on a farm and am busy with building and repairing. Since
I have tools, I do everything myself. I get up at 6 o'clock,
do morning exercises. I love to swim. Professionally, I continue
to consult from time to time on projects such as Shuttle Mir.
I've had incredible experiences in my life time, most of which
I wouldn't trade for anything in the world.

Some Notable Firsts
in Space Made by Soviet Aeronautics

First SatelliteSputnik on October 4,
1957. Circled the earth every 96 minutes.

First
Man in SpaceYuri Gagarin on April
12, 1961. Orbited the earth and landed in less than 2 hours

First
Woman in SpaceValentina Tereshkova
on June 16, 1963. for three days.

First
Three Man CrewKomarov, Yegorov and
Feoktistov on October 12, 1964. The seating arrangement was so
cramped the cosmonauts didn't wear pressure suits.

First
SpacewalkBelyayev and Leonov
on March 18, 1965

First
Spaceflight FatalityVladimir Komarov on
Soyuz 1 launched on April 23, 1967 (Yuri Gagarin was backup).
His parachute did not open upon descent.